


an essay, scribbled; a phrase, written and forgotten

by rhyol1te



Series: Victor Hugo: Enjolras's Weird Teacher. Les Mis: Enjolras's (Not Very) Short Story. [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enjolras wrote les mis for a school assignment, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't copy to another site, M/M, they're students of some sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25816918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyol1te/pseuds/rhyol1te
Summary: Enjolras gets his essays back.(Part three of my "Enjolras wrote Les Mis and included all his friends in it, only partially as a joke 'verse)
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Series: Victor Hugo: Enjolras's Weird Teacher. Les Mis: Enjolras's (Not Very) Short Story. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610965
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	an essay, scribbled; a phrase, written and forgotten

Enjolras gets his second essay back back covered in what looks like an entire other short story’s worth of scribbled notes on the back of the printed pages.

Grantaire immediatly grabs it from him. “Lemme see those. Hey, Jehan! Want to read that short story about all of us that Enjolras wrote? The literary masterpiece that will immortalize us forever as symbols of people fighting against injustice and stuff?”

On their sofa, where they’ve been taking a page out of Bahorel’s book and avoiding an upcoming exam, Jehan sits up. As they do so, their hat (slightly hideous, and more than slightly patterned with bird skeletons and starbursts) nearly slips off their head, and they smash it back onto their head. “Of course! If it’s alright with you, Enjolras.”

Enjolras spreads his hands. “Sure. I mean, it does have all of us in it.”

Jehan grins, and starts reading, making sad and/or happy noises in what Enjolras assumes are the right places. He’s not sure, though—Jehan reads very fast.

“Wait,” they say, flipping the first page over, “is this a part of the story, too?”

Enjolras looks over. “No, those are the comments my prof”—he reads a few words of the note, actually realizes what it’s about—“wait, what? Can I see that for a minute?”

“Sure.” Jehan hands it over. “I’m done with that page, anyway. And good job on the story—it’s almost Romantic.”

“Thanks,” Enjolras says, and peers down at the words on the back of the page. The essay, really: it's _not_ a short comment. _What,_ it starts, _is slang? It is at one and the same time, a nation and a dialect; it is theft in its two kinds; people and language—_

“You wrote about slang?” Grantaire says, climbing on the sofa and on Jehan to look over Enjolras’s shoulder.

“You could’ve just asked to see the paper,” Enjolras says. “And no, I didn’t.”

“Perhaps you don’t remember! Maybe you wrote an essay about slang and”—he looks at the paper again—“uh, what it steals (and _how_ does that make sense?) in a haze of inspiration, unaware of the words that were pouring forth from your pen, from your very mind.”

“I’m using that, later,” Jehan says. “R, can I use that?”

“Why, yes,” Grantaire says. “Everything I say is in the public domain, herewith and henceforward. I hope those aren’t actual legal terms; if they were I’d have to have a strong talk with Bahorel about his parody of a law student becoming too close to real.”

“Wait, why would your professor feel like he had to write you an essay about slang?” Jehan asks, probably in an attempt to keep Grantaire from getting too passionate about his monologue and continuing to ramble for hours.

(“Not,” Musichetta had said, once, “that we don’t _like_ your rambles. But it is nice to get a word in edgewise, sometimes.”)

(That had prompted its own ramble, of course, this one would the word ‘edgewise’ and its entomology, which had let to a debate about studying bugs, because Bossuet had been in the other room.)

Enjolras looks down at his paper. “I used the phrase ‘low-key almost dead' to describe Marius." He looks up, confused. "Wait, I don’t remember writing that.”

“Haze of inspiration,” Grantaire says. “Also, you'd had a _lot_ of cold medicine.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> The part in italics about slang is an actual Brick quote (from the Hapgood translation).
> 
> Comments (no matter how short!) and kudos make me super happy! <3


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